Being an inclusive employer is key to who we are at BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions and within the BNP Paribas Group. We encourage all our people to be themselves at work. We also firmly believe that it is our differences that make us stronger, whether that’s a broad range of individual strengths, different backgrounds or ways of thinking. It’s that huge variety of input which enable us to challenge each other to grow and develop every aspect of our business, but most importantly to ensure we have a motivated and engaged team who can achieve their full potential and delight our customers every single day.
The latest Gender Pay Report shows we’re making good and continuous progress. A variety of actions across our recruitment, reward, talent and wellbeing strategies are supporting our ambitions. I’m proud of our whole team, all of whom embrace the topics of diversity, equity and inclusion, and am very much looking forward to continuing and building a positive culture.
– Eric Gandemer, CEO BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions UK
WHat do we know about our gap?
A gender pay gap is a measure of the difference between the average earnings of men and women (irrespective of roles or seniority). This differs to ‘Equal Pay’, which is our obligation as an employer to give men and women equal pay for equal work.
Our gender pay gap is not a result of equal pay issues, we have a gender-neutral approach to pay across all levels of the organisation, we regularly benchmark, audit and monitor this to ensure a fair approach.
BNP Paribas Leasing solutions UK Gender pay gap
We understand why we have a gender pay gap. The key drivers both across the financial services industry, and, here at BNP Leasing Solutions is due to low female representation in sales and senior leadership roles, which, relative to other positions, attract higher rates of pay. As we work to address gender balance we are seeing more women enter trainee roles to develop the pipeline for the future, which in the short to medium term can see the gap increase. This is evident in the 2022 figures.
Gender bonus gap
The term bonus includes bonus payments and recognition awards. We have seen a significant improvement in our gender bonus gap which is a combination of our continued efforts to regularly review our bonus structure at all levels of the organisation and partly due to some one-off exceptional changes.
13% of our workforce work part-time and 98% of these are women. The calculations do not take account of pro-rated bonus payments for these part-time workers. Although the part-time working pattern has a negative impact on bonus gap figures, we remain determined to support flexible working and family friendly practices.
All our people receive an annual bonus based on two key criteria – eligibility on joining and provided they are not working their notice period at the time of bonus payment. Any variation in 100% payment for either men or women is therefore related to new joiners or leavers.
Population by quartile
Pay quartiles are calculated by ranking the hourly pay of all staff, then splitting the range into four equal quartiles and calculating the proportion of men and women in each quartile. The higher proportion of men in the upper quartiles reflects the fact that there are more men than women in senior and sales positions attracting higher rates of pay.
We can see the upper quartile is moving in the right direction with year-on-year progress made since 2020, but we are aiming for a 50/50 position of male and females within this population, so we still have a way to go. This is also true of our lower quartile which remains at a low level of male representation within these roles.
WHAT WE ARE DOING TO ADDRESS THE GENDER PAY GAP
Representation of women in leadership and senior roles has been a challenge for our industry and although it will take time, the collective and sustained efforts from our Senior Leadership Team to address this gives me confidence the barriers to women’s progression can be overcome.”
– Andrea Rix (UK Head of HR)
We truly believe that a diverse team is a vital part of our future success. We are really proud of the diverse and inclusive working environment we have already but we are committed to pushing ourselves to developing this further.
The demographics within our organisation continue to be the single biggest factor influencing our pay gap. Representation of women in sales and certain senior roles remains a challenge for our industry so we must continue to push ourselves with the collective and sustained efforts from our senior leadership team to address this.
As we make good progress with gender diversity within our leadership team, we are looking further into how we can attract, retain and develop talented females into traditionally male dominated roles. We aim to have an even balance of candidates and at least one female candidate on every shortlist. We are also focused on the operational roles traditionally dominated by females. Again, we aim to have an even balance of candidates for these roles and at least one male candidate on every shortlist.
We continue to build our talent pool which is 50% women. We know that change will take time, but we will remain focused and strong in our action plans to ensure our workforce is balanced, representative of the communities we work within and progress on our gender pay gap continues to be made.
BNP paribas Leasing solutions UK ACTION PLAN
Recruitment
- Drive on internal mobility with emphasis of identifying and supporting growth of women into more senior and sales roles.
- We work with external recruitment partners to submit an equal gender split of candidates for all roles wherever reasonable.
- We strive to shortlist at least one woman for each senior and sales role.
- We strive to shortlist at least one male for each operational role.
- Succession planning which includes identifying at least one woman for each senior and sales role.
Career
- Our Early Careers Employee Network with Exco level sponsorship, utilising male and female career stories and role models to attract females into traditionally male dominated roles.
- Mentoring programmes to support internal career progression ensuring balanced representation of men and women.
- Our ‘Leaders for Tomorrow’ and ‘Aspire’ talent programme qualification criteria ensures a balanced talent pool of men and women.
- The ‘RISE’ Programme, a mid-career curriculum for women to address retention and career development.
- Succession planning which includes identifying at least one woman for each senior and sales role and supporting their progression through meaningful development.
- Launch of a Sales Academy with an aim on ensuring balanced representation of men and women.
Culture
- Delivering DE&I training and awareness for all our managers to support their strength and confidence in building and leading diverse teams.
- Our Parents & Carers network making a difference by sharing advice, support and encouraging feedback.
- Embedding training for our managers on inclusive recruitment.
- Creating a supportive culture for employees with family commitments through our hybrid 50/50 remote working approach, parental leave policy and enhanced maternity benefits.
To view the BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions UK gender pay gap report click here.
*BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions UK gender pay gap data as of May 2024.
